Cisco Eases Specialization Restrictions

Cisco has eased-up role-sharing restrictions for channel partner specializations. As all of their partners know, specializations in key technologies and market spaces are critical to running a profitable Cisco business. Requirements include minimum numbers of trained personnel for each specialization. Until last month, trained personnel for any one advanced technology specialization couldn’t be used to satisfy the headcount requirement for a second advanced specialization – at least not in a way that preserved all the benefits for each. That’s now been changed, giving channel partners more options. Each technical individual can help to secure two advanced specializations, and each sales individual can help to secure four. The rationale is that it’s valuable for a sales person to be able to understand multiple technologies and understand the content across multiple technologies. But the technical side requires a deeper level of training, and is therefore being limited to two. The impact of this adjustment will mostly be felt among the Premier (smaller) partners, some of whom saw the previous Cisco approach as dictating unnecessary headcount requirements. But gaining new specializations by doubling up the training on fewer key people is not without risk. The departure of one such individual would put more than one advanced specialization at risk – which is the main reason Cisco originally had tighter restrictions in the first place. The best advice is to proceed with caution. Maintaining control of headcount is obviously a good idea. But at the same time, make sure you’re not putting too many eggs in one basket.